pipemakersforum.com

I always get an idea in my head to make a machine or two for my shop, but I have no experience in doing so. I end up getting stopped before I even get started for fear of totally borking something completely. In that case, what's a guy to do? Just forge ahead and see what happens? I'm not terribly m...

A wise man once said, "You can screw up a nice piece of wood in a few minutes with hand tools or a few seconds with a power tool." There's a lot of wisdom in that saying. Besides, one of my greatest joys in life is spreading out an old bed sheet on the floor, plopping down in my rocking c...

thanks guys. frank, thanks for the clarification, i guess i was actually asking two different questions, both of which were answered. i may try an ebauchon block for the next pipe... i felt pretty comfy with the drilling and such, i think i just overshot the bandsawing before drilling. thanks for a...

Good thinkin, Kurt. I have a feeling this will become a popular section of the forum.

The area you're talking about is called the shank. Every pipe maker has different rules for how they go about most anything pipe making-related, but a good rule of thumb is to use the diameter of the mortise as the guide to how thin you can make the shank. There's really no hard and fast rule, just ...

just wanted to thank y'all for your suggestions. my tastes are yet unsophisticated, but man do I LOVE b. hartwell evening stroll. i can't stop smelling it if i'm not smoking it. also really like the barbery coast, butternut burley and frog morton across the pond. i ordered but haven't tried the lan...

Frank...part of the reason I don't mind the difference may be because I don't clench very much. The only pipes I really clench are my shop pipes and these all have vulcanite stems on them. The rest, whether they're lucite or vulcanite, are generally held in the hand and only clenched for a short per...

I'm pretty stunned by this, but not too terribly surprised once I think about it a little bit. We're alot like crows or raccoons, us homo sapiens. We like shiny things and especially shiny things in a myriad of colors. Lucite provides that in a way that ebonite can't, despite tooth feel and lack of ...

Was the stem left inside the pipe the whole time? Curious indeed? Did you mic the delrin to see if it compressed? Maybe leave the stem out for a week and see if the delrin goes back to original size? It was on and off, depending on whether I had time to work on it or not. It's not a flush-fit stem,...

At some point this summer I'm going to be building a proper workshop in the back yard. I have plans for a 12x12 or 8x12 outbuilding with proper insulation and heating/cooling. Maybe in July or I worked out of an 8x12 shed for a year or so; it's really small! When we moved I got a 18x36 shop; even t...

....What the bejeezus is the difference of the different "cuts" of the files? Or, what I think I'm really trying to ask, what are the coarse, medium and fine cuts? ....I never figured it mattered much since everything gets sanded, but I can totally see how knowing would help in several di...

Okay. This is kind of interesting. Several month ago, I began working on a pipe and got a little sidetracked with life. It's been sitting on my workbench and I finally had the time over the weekend to spend some quality time on it. The stem is handmade with a delrin tenon and the whole shebang fit t...

Okay, since we're discussing files, this is a question that's been bothering me for a while. What the bejeezus is the difference of the different "cuts" of the files? Or, what I think I'm really trying to ask, what are the coarse, medium and fine cuts? I have several different files I use ...

Lookin good, Smitty. Definitely keep us posted on how they turn out. I'm particularly interested in the orange extract. One thing I have been discovering is that the flavors that I get out seem to bear little resemblance to the flavors that I put in. I think the next flavor on my list is deer tongu...

If I fire up a pipe in the morning, I stick with that pipe most of the day. After a smoke, I twist up the corner of a paper towel to about the diameter of the bowl. Then I use this to swab out the interior of the bowl and let the pipe sit a bit to dry out some more. Seems to work. Never had one expl...

Okay, so I've never tried a single Rattray blend to date. When I'm done typing this out, I'll be crawling snugly back under my rock :) If you were to suggest just ONE Rattray blend for a guy to try, which would it be? I'm getting ready to make a tobacco order and want to try some new stuff. I'd like...

Clifton.. I'm going to suggest anything in what would be considered the "black cavendish" variety of 'baccys. A few examples would be: Benjamin Hartwell - Evening Stroll Butera - Royal Vintage Sweet Cavendish These are two off the top of my head I can think of. There are MANY MANY MANY var...

Well I've decided to try mixing my own shellac. What cut seems to work best for you guys? :?: I mixed both the equivalent of a pound cut and a half pound cut. The half pound cut seems to do the job for me. You don't need to mix up the whole bag of flakes so you should have plenty to experiment with...

Frank...have no intention whatsoever to simply trash the press, not at all. I just don't use it often as a press so I keep considering using the parts from it to make a useful tool. I'm up in the air on that and have been since I stopped using it to drill my blocks with. I don't do much other work o...

So I have this drill press. Works just fine, but I don't use it much for drilling stummels any more. So I'm at an impasse in regards to what to do with it. I've considered canibalizing the motor and other various parts to build a sanding/finishing station, but I'm loathe to do that as the drill pres...